Goldenrod

September 12.

I stand in Moore’s Swamp and look at Garfield's dry bank, now before the woods are changed at all.





How ruddy ripe that dry hillside by the swamp, covered with goldenrods and clumps of hazel bushes here and there, more or less scarlet. The whole hillside is perfectly dry and ripe.

The golden-rod on the top and the slope of the hill are the Solidago nemoralis, at the base the taller S. altissima. Many a dry field now, like that of Sted Buttrick's on the Great Fields, is one dense mass of the bright golden recurved wands of the Solidago nemoralis, waving in the wind and turning upward to the light hundreds, if not a thousand, flowerets each.

September 12, 2015

It is the greatest mass of conspicuous flowers in the year, uniformly from one to two feet high, just rising above the withered grass all over the largest fields, now when pumpkins and other yellow fruits begin to gleam, now before the woods are noticeably changed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 12, 1859

The greatest mass of conspicuous flowers in the year. Compare September 18, 1852 ("The goldenrods have generally lost their brightness.")

The golden-rod on the top and the slope of the hill are the Solidago nemoralis [Gray Goldenrod].  See August 18, 1854 ("The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields.”); September 1, 1856 ("S. nemoralis, not quite in prime, but very abundant."); September 2, 1860 ("Solidago nemoralis ] apparently in prime.") ; September 6, 1858 ("Solidago nemoralis is apparently in prime on Lupine Hill; some of it past. It is swarming with butterflies"); September 7, 1858 (" a little distance off the field is yellowed with a Xerxean army of Solidago nemoralis between me and the sun");  September 27, 1857 ("Solidago nemoralis nearly done"); October 6, 1858 ("Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost."); October 8, 1856 (". S. nemoralis, done, many hoary, though a very few flowers linger."); October 23, 1853 (" I notice these flowers still along the railroad causeway: fresh sprouts from the root of the Solidago nemoralis in bloom"); November 10, 1858 ("Some very handsome Solidago nemoralis in bloom on Fair Haven Hill. (Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost.)")